About Derrick Crossland

Growing up, Derrick Crossland was profoundly influenced by Jacques Cousteau. One of his earliest creative memories is of carving sharks out of bars of soap. Although his love of art and natures wonders remained an important part of his life, he didn’t earn a living as an artist. Working with his hands he became a master craftsman and cabinetmaker. It wasn’t until later that he made the life changing decision to make art his full time profession.

Derrick Crossland has always loved working with wood and he continues using wood as his main medium. He works exclusively with Baltic Birch, stacking and gluing the layers together to make up the rough shape of the sculpture. In the finished form, the stacked layers exhibit distinctive parallel lines, which flow across the form illustrating the illusion of fluid motion. Unconsciously your eyes track these lines, like topography, helping you perceive the undulating, twists and turns of the sculpture.

His goal as an artist is to create graceful abstract forms. Which keep his audience intrigued with the fluidity of the shapes juxtaposed against the rigidity of the substrate. 

Description of Work

The creations start out as distinct individual layers stacked and glued into a rough block. This block closely resembles the final design. The same way a step pyramid resembles a smooth sided pyramid. The block is then carved using a variety of specialty power tools and sanded to the finish design. The final process is to apply color with stain or airbrushed with dyes and then coated with protective finishes.                           

Flexibility

Size

·      Each design can be scaled up in size. As an example; a five-foot standard design can be made into an eight-foot sculpture.

  Color

·      All stained designs can have any combination of stains.

·      All dyed designs can utilize the whole rainbow of colors.

·      All designs can combine colors or stains with the natural wood in a 50/50 pattern.

Finish

·      The protective finish coatings can be Gloss, Satin or Matte.

Materials

·      All originals are created in wood.

·      All designs can be cast into bronze, stainless or resin.

Application

·      Several different applications of display for each design.

·      Wall mount

·      Tabletop

·      Pedestal

Design

·      Endless design possibilities.

·      If you can imagine it. I can make it.